Patras, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, is where tradition holds that the apostle Andrew — the 'first-called' of the disciples — was crucified, according to later legend on an X-shaped 'saltire' cross that became his emblem. The city has been the center of an Andrew cult for many centuries and today is home to the large modern Cathedral of St Andrew, completed in 1974, which enshrines venerated relics. The history of those relics is itself a story of dispersal and return: they were moved to Constantinople in the 4th century, scattered after the medieval sack of the city (with portions reaching Amalfi in Italy and, by tradition, St Andrews in Scotland), and the skull was carried to Rome in the 15th century for safekeeping in St Peter's. In 1964 Pope Paul VI returned the skull to Patras in a major ceremony, and part of the cross followed in 1980. The documented cult and the movement of relics are well recorded. Whether the bones are genuinely the apostle's cannot be shown, and the vivid martyrdom details — the saltire cross especially — are late tradition rather than early evidence.
- Where it is
- Patras, Achaea, Greece
- Scripture
- John 1:40-42 · Mark 1:16-18 · John 6:8-9